Your new potential hire has just left your office following a final interview. You feel great about their attitude and they appear to have the pedigree of a top candidate. They have all the signs for success: a resume full of great experience, stories about converting tough clients, and the charisma/charm and character you’ve only ever read about in hiring books.
Each week we will be answering common questions we get on background checks, drug testing and other HR industry practices. Got a question? Ask us at info@FirstContactHR.com
Question #3: Why do I need a “background screening” firm? Isn’t most information about a person’s background online?
Contrary to popular opinion, criminal and other searches are not ‘available online. Very few county court records are accessible online, and then only with special access procedures and fees. Most of the advertised sources of online criminal history do not come directly from the courts, but is retrieved from databases that are not always accurate or current.
Always ask if their searches are direct from the originating source or are they simply pulled from a purchased database. To learn more about internet searches, read a previous post on Internet background searches.
For more questions and answers, visit www.FirstContactHR.com and just Ask!
When bringing a new employee on board, there’s no telling what their previous employment or criminal background was, apart from what they told you. As a hiring manager, it can sometimes be difficult to read a person who may be lying during the interview process or even trust that the background check you did was 100% accurate.
Sometimes state repositories for criminal convictions are inaccurate and not up to date, so companies can end up hiring individuals with criminal backgrounds. Another loophole in criminal record background checks is that companies will only conduct the search within the hiring state. Nowadays, most employers will conduct background checks on new employees, but if the search is limited to only the current state of residence, they could end up hiring employees with criminal records – some of them with very serious charges.
Often times, criminal records are not discovered if people committed the crimes out of state. Alternatively, employers can better protect themselves and their clients by conducting more comprehensive criminal record searches, to include but not limited to:
Change of name and address also makes it difficult to background check employees or potential employees for criminal history. With a social security trace and/or address history search as part of the background check, hiring managers can make sure they are searching the right names, aliases, counties and states for a more complete picture of an employee’s background.
Background check loophole exposed: MyFoxBOSTON.com
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About: First Contact HR provides employment screening services, including drug and alcohol testing, identity validations, criminal and credit records research, attitude and knowledge testing, driving records, identification badges and employment and education verifications.